


What the Water Gave Me

by coldrottingtrees



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alcohol, Blood, Dark, Date Rape Drug/Roofies, Depressed Dean, Drowning, Episode: s09e13 Coda, Horror, Hurt Dean Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, Kelpies, M/M, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-10
Updated: 2014-02-10
Packaged: 2018-01-11 19:56:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1177279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coldrottingtrees/pseuds/coldrottingtrees
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the spn kink meme.</p><p> </p><p>  <a href="http://spnkink-meme.livejournal.com/82267.html?thread=30544731#t30544731">(Original prompt)</a></p><p> </p><p>My lightly re-worded take on the prompt:</p><p>Dean leaves the bunker heartbroken at the end of 9x13, believing the most important person in the world to him thinks he's just a selfish loser.</p><p>He ends up in the hands of a monster and Cas has to come save him.</p><p> </p><p>Title is from a Florence + the Machine song.  <a href="http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/florencethemachine/whatthewatergaveme.html">[lyrics]</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	What the Water Gave Me

His hands were shaking.

His fingers hovered over the keys of his laptop, and Dean watched them tremble. He focused on them, tried mentally commanding them to stop, but there was no stilling the tremor.

He clenched them into fists, counted to ten, and uncurled his fingers. They were still for just a moment, and Dean was tremendously relieved to think that he still had control after all, but it took only a few seconds for the shaking to return.

“Son of a bitch," Dean snarled loudly, brushing the laptop off his legs and throwing himself out of bed to pace his room.

It was one small symptom of a myriad of issues Dean was having, but it was so inescapably visible and the outwardness and undeniability of it was the breaking point Dean had been toeing for a long time already.

 _No, Dean. I wouldn’t,_ Sam repeated in Dean’s head. _I wouldn’t I wouldn’t I wouldn’t._

Dean clenched a trembling fist and slammed it into a mirror. The mirror shattered messily, and Dean, still out of his mind with pain and rage, hit it again. Shards of broken glass sliced into his skin in several places, and the blood started flowing faster and harder than Dean expected. The pain hadn’t fully registered in Dean’s brain yet, but the sight of the blood was enough to finally snap him out of his overwhelming, blinding emotions and into a headspace that was calm enough to be rational and functional.

“That was stupid, that was really stupid,” Dean groaned quietly, clutching his hand against his chest. He headed to the bathroom, blood soaking through his shirt, to bandage his hand.

Dean turned on the tap in the bathroom sink and stuck his cut hand under the water. He hissed through his teeth at the sharp sting but held his hand steady. He watched the pink water circling the drain.

_You’ve convinced yourself you’re doing more good than bad, but you’re not._

Dean grit his teeth, trying to will the words out of his head. His eyes and nose were stinging with the threat of tears.

_…as long as you’re not the one being hurt._

“I’ve got nothing. I’ve got fucking nothing,” Dean whispered, angry and broken, tears welling up in his eyes. “Help me... God, something, help me.”

Dean pulled his hand out of the water and shut off the tap. Blood continued to pour, and ran down his fingers in brilliant red rivulets. Dean’s breath came in shallow huffs as he watched it drip against the porcelain.

“I’m poison,” he whispered, eyes unfocused. “I do more bad than good.”

He got lost in his memories, his eyes swimming in the bloody porcelain, so many memories that all shored up this one painful conclusion.

“...No one needs me the way I need them. I get people killed. I’m selfish.”

Dean’s eyes dragged from the sink, swept around the bathroom and catalogued the handful of ways he could kill himself, just within arms reach.

“I’ve gotta get out of here,” he eventually said, shaking himself. He knew if he didn’t, he couldn’t trust himself not to just… do it.

It was tricky, bandaging his own hand, especially considering he had to use his off-hand to do it, but he managed it. It wasn’t pretty, but the blood wasn’t dripping anymore. He went back to his room and changed clothes, and then grabbed his jacket, wallet, cell phone, and car keys, and headed to the garage.

He wasn’t sure where Sam was in the bunker, but he didn’t see him on his way out. 

 

* * *

Dean wanted to get away from the bunker, but he didn’t feel like driving very far, since his hand was still hurting and it was the hand he needed to use on the gear shift. He ended up driving to a town about a half hour away where he knew they had a bar (in rural Kansas, it was good to know where to find a bar, because they could get few and far between).

Cawker City happened to be the home of the World’s Largest Ball of Twine. Dean had taken Sam there once. Sam was the kind of dorky kid that enjoyed kitschy Americana stuff like that. Happily for Dean, there had been a bar only a block away.

Dean situated himself at the bar and ordered a Johnnie Walker neat. He was just getting another when a woman came and sat next to him at the bar.

Dean took a long look as she ordered a whiskey sour. She was a stunning redhead, a mane of long curls that cascaded down her back, with a knockout figure. Dean wondered if it had started raining since he arrived, as her hair was wet enough that it dripped in places and left damp splotches where her hair touched her skin-tight white dress.

He hadn’t really planned on trying for a hook-up, but for this girl he’d definitely pencil it in.

The bartender gave her her drink, and she took a drink before turning to look at Dean. She gave him just as long and considering a look as Dean had given her, and then smiled at him. Dean wasn’t usually this kind of guy, but he actually got distracted by how beautiful her blue eyes were.

“Haven’t seen you around here before,” she smiled. She popped the maraschino cherry into her mouth and sucked it off the stem with a coy look in her eyes.

“I’m… not far. From not far,” Dean stuttered, eyes fixated on her lips.

“Hmm,” she smiled, twirling the cherry stem between her fingers. “Here for the ball of twine?”

“Uh, no,” Dean chuckled. “You live here in town?”

She nodded. “Yeah, I live by the lake.”

“Name’s Dean,” Dean said, offering her his hand. He was feeling too apathetic and reckless to bother with a false name.

The woman smiled and shook his hand. Her hand was shockingly cold. “Bad circulation," she said with an apologetic smile, as if she was used to people finding her hands uncomfortable. "Nice to meet you, Dean. My name’s Murron. You can call me Murry.”

“Nice to meet you, Murry,” Dean smiled.

“Maybe this is a little forward, but could I buy you a drink?” Murry said with a hopeful smile.

“Hey, sounds great,” Dean said with a little laugh.

“What do you take?”

“I was drinking Johnnie Walker but you’re the local, if you know something the barkeep’s good at, order me whatever.”

“Oo, good choice. I like a boy who drinks Scotch,” Murry grinned. She then flagged down the bartender. “How about an Old Fashioned for my friend,” she said, and gave the bartender a wink.

The bartender nodded and started fixing Dean’s drink.

“He’ll make it extra good for you,” Murry whispered to Dean. “He knows me.”

The bartender slid the glass to Dean.

“Here,” Murry said with a playful smile, and lifted the cherry out by the stem to hand-feed it to Dean.

Dean tongued the cherry into his mouth, and Murry audibly purred. Dean grinned and took a drink.

“Mm, not bad,” he said, licking his lips. “I don’t usually drink sugar drinks but that’s good.”

Murry smiled.

“So tell me about yourself,” Dean said, taking another drink.

“Oh, there’s not much to tell,” Murry said with a shrug. “I’m much more interested in you.” She watched Dean, her bright blue eyes keen and focused.

 _Oh fuck,_ Dean thought, clutching the bar in his good hand. The sounds of the bar were getting softer and muddier, like cotton was being stuffed in his ears, and he was getting a sickening wave of vertigo.

“Are you alright, Dean?” Murry asked, her chin propped casually on her fist.

Dean blinked rapidly, trying to focus. _Getting roofied twice in one week, gotta be some kinda record,_ Dean thought with wry self-loathing.

Murry stood up from her barstool and came to stand right next to Dean’s shoulder. To Dean, it seemed like she was moving in slow-motion, and it was strangely terrifying.

“You don’t look so good,” she whispered in his ear, wrapping her hands around his arm. “Come on, I’ll take you to my place.”

Dean wasn’t stupid, he knew that going anywhere with someone who could tip off a bartender to slip a roofie into his drink was a really bad idea. But Dean hadn’t been in a caring mood for quite a while, and in the back of his mind a voice laughed and mirthfully suggested that if he got really lucky, she’d kill him. 

 

* * *

“Wake up, Dean,” a voice whispered in his ear.

With great effort, Dean managed to open his eyes. All he wanted to do was sleep, but a thin thread of alarm jolting through his blood prompted him to wakefulness.

It was dark out, but he could see a lake in front of them through the windshield. He was in the passenger seat of a strange car, and had no memory of how he’d gotten here.

Something cold and wet was dripping annoyingly down his neck, soaking the collar of his shirt.

“I’m going to take you into that lake,” the woman whispered. “I’m going to pull you all the way to the bottom, and I’m going to eat you. Slowly.”

A tongue slid along the outer curve of Dean’s ear.

Dean closed his eyes. He was tempted to fall back asleep. He was just so _tired._

 _Cas,_ Dean prayed, trying to focus just enough to put together one last thing to say. _I don’t know if you can hear me. You’ve got your angel thing going again, right? You were driving though so I don’t know how much “angel” you’ve got._

The woman was tugging Dean’s outer shirt off. It made him shiver, the cool air snaking closer to his skin. Any time her hands touched his bare skin, he reflexively jerked away. She was cold as death.

_If you can hear me, Cas, I just wanted to say I’m sorry. I’ve been a big let down the whole time you’ve known me, and I’m sorry._

The woman yanked Dean’s under shirt off over his head. His whole body started trembling with cold. Her long hair fell over his bare skin, soaking wet and dripping icy water down his arm and chest.

_Got myself in trouble, Cas. I don’t think I’m making it out of this one. I’m sorry, and…_

Frigid fingers opened Dean’s belt and then unbuttoned and unzipped his pants. Dean gasped at the shocking cold against sensitive skin.

His impending death flashed before his eyes. He wondered if the monster would wait until he’d drowned to start eating him, or if he’d feel her tearing away chunks of his flesh as the water filled his lungs. And because he was a hunter even to the last moment, he had the presence of mind, even drugged and terrified, to stop and wonder what kind of monster she was.

 _Cas…_ Dean felt tears welling up in his eyes. This wretched despair was worse than anything the monster planned to do. Death, no matter how slow and painful, would be a relief. _I fucked it all up, Cas. I tried to be good, I_ tried _. Saving people, looking out for Sammy… that’s what I thought I was supposed to do… I thought I was doing right… I’ve never been good, never, but I tried, I promise I tried. Please forgive me. Will God forgive me, Cas? Am I going back to Hell when I die? I’m scared…_

The monster started yanking at Dean’s jeans, her nails cutting painfully into his skin as she worked them off his hips.

“I don’t like them dressed when I eat them,” she whispered in his ear. “Cloth gets stuck in my teeth, doesn’t taste good.”

Once she had his pants and boxer briefs shoved down past his knees, the woman got out of the car and came around to the passenger side. She pulled Dean out of the car, and though he tried to stand up, between the jeans tangled up around his boots and the drug-haze, he ended up falling out of the car in a heap. The woman hauled him to his feet with astonishing strength, stood in front of him, and draped his arms over her shoulders so that she could carry his weight on her back and drag him to the lake.

 _I’m really going to die,_ Dean thought to himself as he watched the woman step into the lake, and then felt the water rising up around his boots, soaking his jeans. _Some two-bit lake monster is gonna end me…_

The water rose up his legs, up his hips, up his chest, and then the woman disappeared under the surface. He could still feel her under his arms, and could feel her body shifting and changing. Her little white dress ripped and tore away as she grew in size, and her soft skin turned tough and leathery. Her long, curly hair floated on the surface of the water, and even in nothing but moonlight he could perceive it shift from pale red to a stark white. He felt something brush against him under the water, and then a long tail wrapped around his body. A white horse head with dead black eyes just barely broached the surface of the water and stared at him for a moment before he was dragged under.

It was instinctive, holding his breath, but a voice in his head even now was telling him _let go, drown before you feel it eating you._ But he couldn’t make himself do it, and he watched the kelpie’s forelegs kicking in a gallop through the water as it dragged him to the bottom. He watched it look back at him and open its mouth, and saw through the gloom its piranha-like teeth just before they sank into his shoulder and tore a piece of flesh away.

The pain was so enormous that it took a moment to fully reach him. For one moment, he simply watched it happen, stared in horror at the wrongness of the shape of his shoulder with a chunk missing, watched the blood stain the murky water. Then the pain registered, and he opened his mouth to scream.

Water rushed in so fast he couldn’t possibly expel it. The shock made him gasp in the breath his lungs were already aching for, and when he reflexively tried to cough, more water rushed in. It was over.

Through the panic, he felt something clench around his other shoulder. He dragged his face around through the water to look, assuming it was the kelpie taking another bite, but saw a hand there instead. Despite the resistance of the deep water, and the heavy weight of the kelpie still coiled fully around his body, the hand powerfully hauled him up through the water. His lungs were spasming painfully in his chest, trying to breathe water, and he could feel himself blacking out. So much force was being exerted to haul him through the water that he felt the tearing pain of his shoulder being dislocated as the kelpie fought to pull him back down.

He passed out.

 

* * *

“Dean? Dean, can you hear me?”

Dean opened his eyes, and the first thing he saw was blue eyes. He panicked, remembering the kelpie in her human form. He thrashed, trying to get away, but a strong hand settled over his chest, holding him still, and the hand was _warm_.

Dean took a deep breath, remembering he was drowning. It was nothing but air, and he was so grateful. He clapped a hand over the hand on his chest and squeezed it with intense thankfulness. This was the hand that saved him.

“Cas,” Dean whispered, seeing the things around him for what they were, not the nightmare he’d woken from. “Thank God, it’s you.”

They were outside, still beside the lake. It was early morning; the sky was just beginning to lighten with the coming dawn. Dean was flat on his back in the grass, and Cas was kneeling over him. He was still naked but for the waterlogged jeans still bunched around his ankles, but he had come too close to death to care about that.

Cas gave a small smile and nodded. “No one’s ever thanked God for me before,” he said softly.

Something clenched in Dean’s heart, something that squeezed tighter and tighter until suddenly Dean couldn’t take it anymore, and he grabbed Castiel’s face, hauled him close, and kissed him, deeply and thoroughly, for long minutes.

When Dean finally released him and dropped back on his back, Cas was staring at him, rosy cheeked and ruffled.

Dean chuckled fondly. “Been thinking about doing that for a long time.”

There was another pause, Cas just staring at him, the spinning of gears visible in his eyes, and then Cas crawled fully on top of Dean, shoved a hand in his hair, and kissed him back. Dean moaned and arched his body up against Cas, heat flooding through him. The sensation of Cas’s clothes against his naked skin was intoxicating.

With visible reluctance, Cas pulled away. Dean groaned with disappointment.

“Dean…” Cas started, his eyes sad. “You _are_ good.”

Dean stared at Cas, pain causing him to forget to breathe for a moment.

“You are a good man, and you do not need my forgiveness. Not for anything.”

“I… should get my pants back on,” Dean muttered. He shouldered Cas out of the way as he sat up and struggled to squirm back into his wet jeans. He grimaced. Not much was as miserable as wearing wet jeans.

A dull ache in his shoulder suddenly made him remember the kelpie bite. He looked over and saw a large circle of pink new skin, no flesh missing at all. He then noticed that his right hand was now healed as well.

“Thanks for healing me up, Cas,” Dean said, zipping his pants. “Hey,” he then said, another thought suddenly occurring to him, “how’d you get here? I thought you couldn’t fly?”

“It was… difficult.”

“Yeah, go on,” Dean prompted, looking for a better answer.

“I will not be able to fly us anywhere,” Cas said apologetically. “We will have to walk back to your car.”

“Are your wings… growing back, or something?” Dean asked, still trying to force Cas to give him more detail. “Can’t do the weight of two people yet?”

“They are… healing… but the process is slow. Flying on injured wings is… arduous.”

“Did you hurt them?” Dean asked, feeling his heart like lead in his chest. “Getting here, to me?”

“It was worth it,” Cas said with heavy seriousness and an intensity in his eyes. “Do not question that.”

Dean sighed and looked away.

“Let’s go home, Cas,” Dean said, feeling bone tired.

Cas quirked his head at Dean, confused.

“To the bunker. I want you to come with me. Please?”

“You want…” Cas started, falteringly.

“Yeah, and I’m really sorry about making you leave last time. That was Gadreel, threatening to kill Sam if I let you stay. I wanted you there then and I still want you there now, and it’s safe now. Please. Come home with me.”

Cas stood, and Dean looked up at him. The sun was just cresting the horizon, and rays of light backlit the angel in brilliant shafts. He held out a hand to help Dean up, and it was so beautiful it made Dean’s heart ache.

“You’re like a damn painting or something,” Dean said gruffly, trying to make it sound like mockery to cover how _emotional_ he was.

Cas smiled, that saintly little smile that made him look ancient and endlessly kind. It just made it worse.

“Which way’s the road?” Dean asked, and when Cas pointed, walked off, arms folded over his cold, naked chest, wet jeans creaking.

“I think you look like a painting, too,” Cas said lovingly.

“What?” Dean huffed, stopping to look back at Cas.

“You’re beautiful,” Cas said simply. “Like a painting.”

“That is _not_ ,” Dean said, flustered. “Not what I meant.”

Cas took off his coat and handed it to Dean. “You look cold, and I do not feel the temperature now that I have my grace back. I understand what it’s like to feel cold now. Take this.”

Dean clenched his jaw hard, fighting the urge to break down in ugly tears. He snatched the coat, turned around, and put it on while continuing off toward the road.

“Thanks, Cas,” he eventually said.

“You’re welcome, Dean.”


End file.
